Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Government Quotations

For a country to have a great writer is like having a second government. That is why no regime has ever loved great writers, only minor ones.

Our government declared that it is conducting some kind of great reforms. In reality, no real reforms were begun and no one at any point has declared a coherent programme.

Let us drive away those cruel, greedy oppressors, governments, and the new ones, having just laid aside grenades and rifles, will be just and understanding. Far from it.

A great writer is, so to speak, a secret government in his country

The central government possesses no plan of finding the way out of this blind alley.

For a country to have a great writer is to have another government.

The strength or weakness of a society depends more on the level of its spiritual life than on its level of industrialization. Neither a market economy nor even general abundance constitutes the crowning achievement of human life. If a nation's spiritual energies have been exhausted, it will not be saved from collapse by the most perfect government structure or by any industrial development. A tree with a rotten core cannot stand.